The Trouble with Wonder Woman

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Will Diana Prince ever get her due in film or television?

By Joey Esposito

In light of yet another delay on a Wonder Woman project, I thought it was high time to revisit this feature I wrote way back when the last Wonder Woman TV project failed to gain traction. Originally published in January 2011:

As word broke about all of the networks passing on David E. Kelley's 924068.html" class="autolink" >Wonder Woman pilot yesterday, nerds across the globe sighed with defeat. Once again, Princess Diana has failed to gain steam as a multimedia property. After years of floating around in development hell, hope had been ignited when Kelley announced that he was attached to a Wonder Woman television project. Alas, here we are again.

What is the trouble with Wonder Woman? With DC having successfully adapted two out of three Trinity members in the last 30 years, why has Diana Prince gone through so many stops and starts?

The Costume

The most logistical problem is the costume. As with most superhero costumes, taking a design straight from the comics and placing it on a real, live human being is going to yield goofy results. The flipside of that is fan outrage when the classic costumes are altered drastically for their film appearance. Remember when we first caught a glimpse of Bryan Singer's X-Men and didn't see a Wolverine that resembled a bumble bee? Our hearts sank. But in the end, the costume design wound up being a good choice for the film and helped ground the characters in a reality we could believe in.

Wonder Woman's classic buxom, tight, and illogical outfit isn't suited to be portrayed in a realistic live-action environment. Between having no pants, sporting high heels, and showing enough cleavage to make a blind man see, it stands to reason that audiences would struggle to believe that a woman dressed in such a way was an ambassador to a foreign land, let alone a fierce warrior. While comic fans have accepted her appearance and know that there's more to the character than simply her look, there is only so much suspension of disbelief that can be asked of the audience.

It's notable that only months prior to the announcement of Kelley's Wonder Woman, DC stirred things up in their superhero universe by revamping Wonder Woman completely, from origin to costume design. As expected, the revamp was met with varying opinions but ultimately has been accepted as a much needed modern overhaul. Sporting pants, a jacket, and significantly reduced square footage in cleavage, the new Wonder Woman design proved to be more femme-friendly and certainly more sensible for fighting crime. So too is it more adaptable to the big screen.

Studios would be hard pressed to find an actress willing to squeeze into the one-piece of old, let alone swing a sword or lasso a thug. With the new costume likely being more comfortable for the actor wearing it, it stands to reason that their performance would be more believable, thus the audience more engaged.